Adam Nevill - Author Interview

Yesterday I attended a triple book singing event at Forbidden Planet in London by China Miéville, Mark Charan Newton and Adam Nevill. This was a great event, and I got to meet lots of fellow bloggers as well as the authors themselves. I was really pleased to meet Adam Nevill, who's latest novel Apartment 16 I thoroughly enjoyed, and who was recently kind enough to give me this insightful interview.

Hi Adam! Really good of you to answer my questions, how are things with you? 

Was good of you to ask me, Jason. Not wanting to tempt the Fates too much, but it's a period of real excitement and confirmation for me as a writer right now.

So Apartment 16 is the new novel, what was your inspiration for this story? 

My long term interest in the outsider-artist in literature who seeks fulfilment through a creative vision, but unravels himself due to transience, financial anxiety, isolation, despair, and a sense of hopelessness, was a primary inspiration. I actually put myself through that ‘old school’ writer’s lifestyle for about 15 years and I don't romanticise it now. But through the characters of Felix Hessen and Seth, I wanted to make my own addition to outsider fiction by devising my own strange creative visions, and artist’s inner journeys to the very bottom of themselves; I’m fascinated by the idea of someone transgressing barriers, including reason and sanity to reach enlightenment. And I think horror is the perfect medium for this kind of story. Horror has gone around many society and family-in-peril themes since Poe and Stevenson, who really explored the inner life and split-psyches, so I wanted to get back to the individual; the terror of existence among one’s own kind, and of cosmic insignificance, and a solitary figure pursuing an ultimately self-destructive vision for a truth that is more than most can withstand.

This approach often goes wrong for writers, and is typical of the self-absorbed first novel written in the first person, and tends to be restricted to 'literary' fiction. But as this was my eleventh completed novel, I had waited and waited and waited for the characters, the experience, the situation, the imagery, the story, all to present itself to me. For the book to write itself out of me.

Through this, I also wanted to investigate my own hardships in London by creating a disintegration of a human mind amidst the overwhelming, the teeming, the utterly indifferent, and the exhausting struggle to survive in an overcrowded modern city with haphazard infrastructure. Supernatural horror was actually the precursor to a creative examination of psychic and psychological turmoil, as I mentioned before. So, in some ways, I was getting back not only to the very roots of modern horror, but also saluting Knut Hamson, James Joyce, George Orwell, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, John Fante, Charles Bukowski, Colin Wilson, Somerset Maugham: the writers who made me want to write.

Seth is that outsider character, very insular and obsessive. A character that really worked for me, but who could have been very difficult to like. What was it like writing him? 

How right you are to point that out, Jason. A major risk for a writer, is exactly what Seth became. Most writing guides and tutors and perceived wisdom will warn against tragic, miserabilist lead characters. Obsessive misanthropes are hard to empathise with, apparently. But I adore them. What is so refreshing is how young editors and reviewers, and now readers, have taken to Seth so far; his inner struggle and turmoil, his black humour, his twisted perception, his utter loathing for his fellow man and for society, all seem to be striking chords.

My patience with other people's PR in this city had long reached its end as I wrote the book. Everyone is a Communication's Director these days; their lives appear to be public relations exercises in which they endless compete with others, pursue bragging rights etc. Seth was a middle finger to all of that jargon and hype and PR that is based on attention seeking with nothing of value underwriting it. Seth genuinely has nothing; he is a throwback to a turn-of-the-century outsider; a man in rags who turns his back on all modern aspirations to pursue a traditional creative vision that will almost certainly destroy him. But he still goes there. We truly live in the age of pathological materialist ambition. In some ways, the book is my fist in the face of this age. But strive against it and it will destroy you.

What about Apryl, there is in her character a kind of tragic naivety I thought?

I wanted Apryl to be an happy-go-lucky Rockabilly girl whose heart was in the right place; and an outright contrast to the leading man, Seth. I've enjoyed the retro scene for years, and met my girlfriend there (she was dressed like Dita Von Teese and I was in my Bugsy Malone rig), so am familiar with stylish retro girls. I wanted her to be both an every woman to properly frame the weirdness of Seth, Felix Hessen and Barrington House, but also enough of a female outsider, through her taste in music and sub-culture and style, to interest me as a writer.

I found the art elements intriguing, a touch of Dorian Gray in places. I paint occasionally, and I loved the detail and authenticity you brought to this aspect. So why the art theme? 

I also have no skill as an artist, but my imagination has always teemed with paintings, sculptures, and installations that I would like to create, had I any ability. So this was one way of creating an artistic vision through an intermediary: the character Felix Hessen; perhaps the greatest painter art history never knew. In one of my erotic novels I did the same thing with a female sculptor. One critic wrote, "Tracy Emin would give her right arm for some of these ideas" which pleased me no end.

I've also been fascinated by Francis Bacon since my teens. Same for Wyndham Lewis; one of the best and most interesting English artists of the twentieth century, who has been in disrepute for supporting fascism. Many of his paintings also went missing, or were destroyed. Felix Hessen is a composite of those two, with a twist of Dix and Groz. In literature and art, I think modernism is my favourite period. I also spent my childhood absorbed and disturbed by the paintings in my Dad's books on Hieronymus Bosch and Brueghel the Elder; painters who identified and depicted the true grotesque of humanity. So my writing, the actual imagery and symbolism I employ in the novel, was all directly influenced by a lifelong interest in these artists who recreated the grotesqueness of humanity.

The second half of The Moon and Sixpence by Somerset Maugham is also one of the most powerful and affecting things I have read (the novel is about Gauguin). So that Maugham novel was an influence too in creating an individual who transcends acclaim and notice to pursue an idiosyncratic but compelling interpretation of the world. Maugham also wrote a good novel about Crowley, called The Magician. Maugham seems to be an unfashionable writer within the literary establishment, but I can't think why; he is one of our best.

The Crowd by Wyndham Lewis

Wyndham Lewis sounds interesting, I'd not heard of him before. I've been meaning to look into Maugham for many years now, and will make a more determined effort I think. Aleister Crowley often pops up in horror, are you tempted to try any of crowley's rituals yourself?

No.

There is in Apartment 16, a scene in which Seth gets a kicking from a bunch of teenage thugs, which really stood out for me. A very urban contemporary horror, alongside the occult and supernatural themes. Was that a deliberate contrast you wanted to highlight?

That scene was a distillation of the terrible recreational violence I have seen perpetrated, and occasionally been subjected to, over the years in the market towns and cities of this country. It's indicative of Anglo Saxon culture. If I could identify what I loathe most about my own country, that would be it: the savage and cruel and sadistic delight in the wounding of strangers. A few years ago, I read that there were over 70K permanent facial disfigurings through violence in the UK, mostly caused by glassings. That's the real horror. That's evidence enough of a broken society. And the utterly random nature of it is terrifying. It's a lottery, but men between the ages of 16 to 26 seem to have more tickets than they bargained for these days. 

I lived above a pub in London, like Seth, and remember coming home from work to find the bar staff looking after a teenager who had been stabbed in the neck outside the pub. I've seen people beaten half to death in Birmingham; one of my sister's friends was nearly killed by two strangers at a taxi rank; when I worked a door at university, I had a pint glass swung at my face first night on the job; I've been attacked twice by bikers when I sang in a heavy metal band; in their twenties, nearly all of my friends were attacked by the equivalent of upright feral baboons in sports leisure wear ... roaming in packs in the Midlands, looking to isolate and then to savage complete strangers. Again: pathological behaviour. So where has conscience and accountability gone in a modern civilised society? That chapter was written from the life. It was to recreate the brutalisation, the savagery, the pathology of our times, the very randomness of it. I visit Europe several times every year, and my sixth sense just switches right off. In the UK, it never leaves me. You could have a fist fight every day in London if you began to object to the inconsiderate and anti-social behaviour of others around you.

I understand this very well from some of my own experiences of growing up in Inner London. I'm from Hackney, and so I was also very aware of the disparity between Seth's life above the pub in Hackney, and the primary setting in Knightsbridge. Were you consciously aware of class issues when writing this story? 

I suppose it came out of the circumstances of the book’s genesis, rather than being a deliberate choice to write about such a big issue. My own life swung between living around and in absurd poverty, whilst also working for the grotesquely wealthy every day, so class became topical. I actually lived above an old East London pub and worked in the private apartment blocks of Mayfair, Knightsbridge and Marylebone as a porter and night-watchman; these apartment buildings were populated by some of the richest people in the world. But I worked unskilled, uniformed, minimum wage jobs in order to get the headspace and the time to write. I saw this as a practical way of achieving basic financial security and the freedom to be a writer, not as a hunt for material to write about. But the environments I was experiencing were so fascinating, they became the only thing I could write about at one stage. And this often happens with downshifts – your experience down there becomes overwhelming. The original title of the novel was, Down Here with the Rest of Us.

That period in my life was also one of the most invigorating, but also risky, times for me as a writer. It was the height of the asset bubble; career opportunities had never seemed better, there was a new wealth created by property ownership; it was a time of professional and social aspiration for most ... but I deliberately dropped myself to the bottom rung of society to be a writer. It was a radical time for me. Ultimately, many of the ideas and imaginings in the book are pretty radical too, I think, but in a way that avoids conventional politics.

And I think as I came to focus on class, I also came to understand how men become politically radicalised. When you are poor, demoralised, in essence a servant of the powerful, but are educated and excluded from social equality, and yet forced to observe the über rich domestically, you begin to have very unhealthy thoughts. I was in that position by design, but I was able to empathise with periods of history and with other cultures where there was/is no choice in being so excluded and disenfranchised. Of being trapped; of not having control; of going mad from it. That runs through the entire book.

I also wanted to deconstruct the English novel’s love affair with high society; it’s one of the reasons I tend to favour the American novel; I’d grown tired of the social aspirations, the social climbing, the obsession with wealth, status, and profile in middle class English fiction; so I made British society utterly bleak and grotesque at every level through a kind of Francis Bacon anthropomorphism.

During those years it was like existing in a Hogarth painting or a Dickens novel; I met ghastly, eccentric, impossible, amusing, and delightful characters every day, both in the pub and in the apartment buildings. It was hyper real; a literary fantasy; larger than life. In the end, how could I not write about it? It wasn’t just a case at having a crack at the top of society, or at the underclass either. I don’t think the alternative or the Bohemians fare much better in the novel. But that is the crux of the outsider; permanent exile and rage amongst one’s fellow man and society.

So yes, I guess I did end up writing about class in a peculiar way because I was constantly confronted by it.

A lot of research evidently went into the book. What research methods do you employ? 

I usually just read a great deal of secondary material. To find the right language and idiom in which to write about, say, art history, witchcraft, or the occult. Specific details add authenticity and maturity to your work. For this novel I studied the art scenes and political fervour of the 30's and 40's to create a plausible expressionist painter who was attracted to Fascism, and who was a contemporary of Oswald Mosley. I also attended several exhibitions in art galleries. Ironically, once the book was completed, there was a Francis Bacon exhibition and a Futurist exhibition in London. I took it as a sign!

I've heard you cite some of the classic writers of supernatural horror as inspiration for your work, Arthur Machen, Algernon Blackwood and of course M.R. James. What is it about these writers that inspires you, and why should I as an aspiring writer of dark fiction read them?

More than anything, they defined modern horror as an end in itself; especially James, who made the transporting of the reader through terror his main aim. Machen and Blackwood have a wonderful mysticism and wonder in their work too, that compliments the dread. At their best, the best in our field – and I’d cite Thomas Ligotti and Ramsey Campbell and Robert Aickman in the same breath as the late Victorian and Edwardian greats – have succeeded in making supernatural horror fiction as good and as affecting as any other fiction in the literary canon. As you know, it’s not all pulp and sensationalist adolescent fantasy in this field. Great speculative and surreal literary works exist if you look for them. Read these writers and become aware of just how much of human experience and the inner world of modern man, you can actually explore in horror fiction.

I think no other form of fiction is quite so well placed to look into the shadow areas of society and the human psyche. What about the supernatural elements though? In what way is supernatural horror relevant in the modern age? Surely science has consigned notions of the supernatural to the past? 

I think of supernatural horror as metaphor, for so many things in our experience. Conveying the sense that life is struggle, is so fragile, is so arbitrary, and that our perception can be so strange, is perfect for supernatural horror. Belief doesn’t even need to come into it. Imagination does.

Christopher Fowler and Maura McHugh recently ran The Campaign for Real Fear, with the aim of encouraging more diversity in horror writing, and also encouraging people to think about contemporary fears. What developments would you personally like to see occur in horror writing? 

I’d like to see quality control, primarily, in the actual writing published. Better written, better published titles, that give the genre a chance to endure this time around. I think there has been some terrific horror written recently, exploring contemporary fears by a whole host of writers. It might not be on the mainstream radar that often, but explore and experience the joys of new discovery by investigating Joel Lane, Conrad Williams, Paul Melloy, Joseph DeLacey for starters.

And more overt science fiction and horror amalgams would be good too. We all love it at the cinema, but beside apocalyptic scenarios, and virus scenarios and immediate future dystopias, why is there so little science fiction horror, primarily exploring the conventions of supernatural horror, but in the far future? Lovecraft was as much sci fi as horror. I find the absence puzzling. I'm talking of the equivalent of Event Horizon, Alien, Pandorum, Sunshine sci fi horror, not elements of horror in space opera, or aliens with different shaped heads. And I'd love to read the literary equivalent of these films. If it does exist, I need to be pointed to it by a good source. I find space just terrifying.

I love sci-fi horror and those films you mention. There's a videogame, Dead Space, which is a great sci-fi horror game. Although I haven't seen any books of that type. Literary horror is making a comeback though isn't it? I'm really excited that it seems as if we may be about to see a resurgence of literary horror; will it happen do you think? 

I think horror will continue to be strong in the pulp genre-crossover realms of urban fantasy and dark fantasy and paranormal romance, because it's now embedded in young reading tastes (and the not so young if the grown women reading Meyer on the train are anything to go by), and is also reinforced by a whole array of different media. I'm not knocking these other new fiction genres, though, because they reinvigorated the current vogue for print-horror by bringing the supernatural back to centre stage at publishers. They've also introduced a new generation of readers to, at least, the existence of horror, and have become a new strand of it. Will this new generation of mainly female readers, spread their interest around other writers in the field? My jury is out.

In children's and YA fiction it will always be strong too. And in comics, computer games, and film it will continue to flourish and be reinvented. But for straight supernatural horror in books, in which the primary purpose of the book is to create a disturbing reading experience, and that is marketed and sold as such by big publishers, I think there will be one or two books that will go stratospheric and break out beyond a purely genre readership, and that may launch major careers (Chris Ransom’s sophomore novel is out soon, and his first one was huge, so he is one to watch). I think writers from other genres, particularly literary fiction, will experiment with the conventions of horror more often. I thought Brett Easton Ellis's Lunar Park was a really good Stephen King style horror novel, Fangland by John Marks was a superior reworking of the vampire myth, Cold Skin by Albert Sanchez Pinol was a terrific literary Lovecraftian terror. But will the horror section of a book shop grow to the current size of crime/thriller, and get back to where it was in the 80's? I doubt it. Because the interest in horror hasn't subsided in adult reading tastes if you think about it; it's just been sated satisfactorily in other genres, like in serial killer crime, and in occult thrillers for a very long time now. Also, the major horror players in the scene just get bigger and keep writing successful books anyway.

Best case scenario is that a few of us new authors are supported by readerships and publishers like Pan Macmillan, Gollancz, Voyager, Transworld, Little Brown, to the level that many sci fi and fantasy novelists with long backlists have been. A lot of sci fi and fantasy authors don't sell like Dan Brown, but they tick over and are treasured by reasonable readerships. Lottery-win publishing is very short-sighted. But if horror writers are nurtured and supported through successive titles at genre level, in the way fantasy and sci fi writers have been, the genre will stand its ground for some time to come, and some of us might get a shot at producing a decent body of work. In horror, for too long, if you’re not already established, your options are either the small presses, or series fiction. But stand-alone titles on a big publisher’s front list is what we need more of. It’s why I think, in a publishing sense, Apartment 16 is in a very unusual position.

You are friends with a number of other horror writers, Sarah Pinborough and Tim Lebbon among them, do you ever feel the urge to compete with your friends? 

No. We all have distinctive styles and approaches and I think the relationship we all have to each other is healthy and complementary, as opposed to competitive. And one of the best and most refreshing and endearing things about the British horror scene is the support, encouragement and help authors give each other, both online, and in the (semi)real world of conventions. That might sound like flannel, but it ain't. Tim Lebbon and Mark Morris particularly, are writers with long and impressive bibliographies who have long name-checked my first novel, Banquet for the Damned, and have published my short fiction when they've worked as editors, and are always an encouraging presence in the scene. They don't have to do any of this for up-and-coming writers, but they do. Horror writers seem to have a wonderful attitude of giving something back to their scene. I've been on some great writing retreats with other writers like Tim, Mark, Sarah, Paul Melloy, Gary Greenwood, Steve Lockley, Paul Lewis, and we all get so much encouragement and good vibes from our peers there. I look at how much Ramsey Campbell, Peter Crowther, Stephen Jones, Chris Fowler and Michael Marshall invest into the scene by anthologising new writers, appearing at conventions, writing introductions, giving advice and recommendations, and I realise how lucky we emerging authors are to have this experience and weight beside us.

You go along to BFS Open Nights and Fantasycon, and you realise there is an entire wealth of character and talent and friendship awaiting you. I kick myself for not getting involved sooner. Beside my one year on a creative writing Masters, I had almost no contact with other writers at all until 2004, when I attended my first Fantasycon. I'd been isolated as a writer for the best part of a decade. But at BFS events you get to hear about anthologies, you meet small presses, you benefit from the wisdom of others. Writers need support networks and there is a great one for horror, sci fi and fantasy writers in Britain, whether the genres reside above or below ground in a commercial sense. We could do with more specialist online sites like Horror Reanimated, which is excellent. My publisher put me within reach of the more sci fi and fantasy oriented sites and blogs like yours, and you guys play a significant role that writers and publishers recognise in forming the critical mass of the sci fi and fantasy genres, but we could sure use more specialist horror sites to underwrite the burgeoning horror scene.

Ultimately, from what I've experienced over the last six years, horror people are good people.

What forms of literature do you enjoy outside of horror? 

I read a great deal of literary fiction, particularly American 20th century fiction. Some crime, mostly noir. Non-fiction too; good true crime, outdoor adventures, and military history are firm favourites. Heavy Metal biographies too, and assorted music journalism.

There so much doom and gloom in publishing at the moment. My ignorant outsider view is that some of it is just melodrama, but you work in the industry, what is your prognosis for the future of publishing? 

No one really knows for certain on the inside, because this huge period of transition for publishing and the book trade is happening right now. Digital books will grow, but I don't think they'll replace print books (beware the hype of manufacturers pushing a product on to us that no one ever actually asked for). Maybe non-fiction reference and travel will struggle to remain dominant in print, because the nature of that material makes sense in the digital medium, same with academic publishing. But I think digital and print will coexist in fiction because of established reading culture. But I worry most about file sharing with digital books, which has not been properly addressed. Ebooks are too expensive right now, which will create file sharing. I cannot see the point of expecting people to spend eight quid on a PDF; the internet has just changed how so many people now acquire content. So he who sells the cheapest eBooks will win there, I think; Amazon have set that precedent already with print books. I think if hand-held devices become dirt cheap, and everyone has an e-reader, and kids are given them for free, there will be a huge boom in books downloaded (though not necessarily paid for). But the culture of entitlement to free and massively discounted content, that the internet has created, will not step aside for eBooks. Why would it?

The biggest problem right now, that I see as a reader and as an author, is the shrinking of booksellers that sell a wide range of titles on the UK High Street. The independent book shops are being crucified, the supermarkets rise and rise and no one can compete with their prices, but they only sell a limited range of blockbuster titles; and, increasingly, the big book chains have either gone under, or also sell a smaller range of blockbuster titles, rather than a wide range of titles and subjects. I really miss Borders; I loved that chain. So who will sell our books? Writers always answer this with: "Amazon". But although online sites will sell everything available, they only buy in small quantities of titles that get heavily discounted. Waterstones are always good for range, but again, there are not that many stores and they have limited shelf space, so take small quantities of non-brand name titles too. For a publisher, this creates a real dilemma that has worsened in recent years. A book is published from a P&L forecast. Sales directors estimate how many books they can get into the trade when an editor pitches a title at a publishing meeting. And if it appears that the publishers are looking at selling-in only a few hundred copies between the High Street and Amazon, it's not cost-effective to publish that book, and it doesn't matter how good it is. Where will these midlist books now go? They're almost always the best books that feature the best writing. Nearly everything I buy is from this group.

If the current book trade implosion continues, and the value of books drops further (more copies sold of fewer heavily discounted titles), some of the bigger groups may have to merge. I wouldn't be surprised to see the publishing world shrink. Advances will drop even further. There will be fewer punts and risks with the titles that are published. More small presses and independent eBook sites for specialist subjects will emerge, but authors won’t get careers from these. Brand name authors will just get bigger and bigger; some now dispense with agents and just use lawyers. Author franchises - other people writing under famous brand names - will deliver more and more content every year.

People still want content - music, film, books - and always will. But the sense of entitlement that everything must be either free or massively discounted, created by endless growth business models, plus the eternal black sea of piracy that is the internet, is not going to be good for publishing or writers. I don’t see how it can be. I haven’t seen any solutions to these problems yet.

Interestingly, when the trade & publishing neglect an area that is more niche, but for which there is still a readership, it is forced to morph into digital media. I can see this happening with erotica now. I wouldn’t be surprised if digital erotic fiction is soon more popular than print erotic fiction.

Speaking of erotic fiction, let's talk briefly about sex. You've written about it a fair bit in the past as a writer of erotic novels. How did that lead to horror?

They are strange bedfellows and coexisted for me. I wrote Banquet for the Damned and initial sketches for Apartment 16 in between my latter nine Nexus novels. Uncannily, Francis Bacon spoke of how he "unlocked the valves of feeling" in order to paint. Writing explicit erotica did this for me; once you eschew self-censorship and accept that greatest of all fears - that your own parents might stumble across one of your pornographic books - the safety catch stays off. It helped me go deep, to the very bottom of myself. As a rule of thumb as an editor, I tend to find that those writers who are a bit scared or ashamed or disturbed by what they are writing, are often the most popular.

Looking forward, you have a story in an anthology, The End of The Line, due out in the autumn. Can you tell me a bit about that? 

After one more horrendous morning of travelling to and from work on the overpriced disgrace that is the London Underground, in which it became impossible to catch any train anywhere near to where I worked, and then impossible to get above ground, and finally impossible to even move on a platform, at the height of summer when it was about 40 degrees below ground, and I arrived at work two hours late for work after being buried somewhere beneath Oxford Circus ... my chest goes tight as I remember this ... I went home that evening and turned the computer on, sat down and wrote a story called On All London Underground Lines as if the devil were behind me. I have been in crowded situations like this so often in London, and I think we’re about one day away from Cormac McCarthy's The Road at any time in this city.

What would be a dream project for you? Is there an idea or an established franchise in any media, that you would absolutely love to write?

I would love to have been involved with Millennium, or the X-Files. Film naturally appeals to me (but with me having creative control of the script!). Micro budget films too - something like Blair Witch or Paranormal Activity I find exciting from a perspective of maintaining control of your own ideas. And a British supernatural horror television series, with old school chills, would be terrific. I'd love to make my next novel into a film with Rob Zombie - you'll understand why when it's out next May. A heavy metal concept album based on one of my books would be sweet too. Graphic novels. I don't want much, do I? I won't get any of it, but pipe dreams are good for the soul.

Thank you so much Adam for taking the time to answer my questions. 

Thank you for asking them and for having me on Kamvision!

Apartment 16 is available now in UK paperback from Pan Macmillan

And available from the Book Depository and

Amazon.co.uk

You can keep up to date with all things Adam Nevill via his blog and his website